


Honesty

by Harley Writes Fanfic (Needle_Bones)



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Gen, Headcanon, trans Eric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 09:56:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5492996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Needle_Bones/pseuds/Harley%20Writes%20Fanfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Potential headcanon exploration. Basically, a Candor boy is a problem and Tris learns something about Eric. (I ended up sort of ‘writing as Tris’ for this one. Not sure if I like it or not.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honesty

“Well, well,” says the boy in Candor clothes. He looks smug as he stops his small group in front of us and crosses his arms. “Never thought I'd see you again,  _Alana_.”

He puts a cruel emphasis on the name and all of the Dauntless members walking behind Eric go quiet faster than I've ever heard before.

Ahead of me, Eric sighs. “What?” he says, his voice mostly steady but fraying at the edges.

“You heard me,” the boy continues, “or did that hormone sludge they injected you with over at Erudite make you deaf?"

I'm pretty sure no one sees Eric move. He twists his hands into the boy's shirt, lifts him up off the ground, and slams his back into the side of a nearby building with enough force to rattle the kid's teeth.

“What” softly, “the  _hell_ ” much louder, “did you just say to me?” The last few words were growled, forced out between his teeth and I feel a shiver go down my spine. This is going to end badly.

Four steps around me and sets his hand down on Eric's arm, telling him something I can't hear. Eric lets go of the boy so quickly that he sits down hard on the grass rather than landing on his feet. He leaves the kid there and walks away, head down, breath uneven, hands shoved in his pockets.

I linger for a minute with the rest of the Dauntless, most of them shaking their heads, talking in murmurs, or glaring daggers at the Candor boy, and then slip away in the direction Eric headed. I'm not sure what I intend to do, or even if I intend to do anything at all. I guess I’m just amazed by the fact that something as simple as a name could rattle him so much. Sure it was rude, but it feels like more than what I took it to be.

For that matter, it had never crossed my mind that Eric could be a faction transfer. Anyone who knew him for longer than two minutes would have probably bet a fortune he was Dauntless-born.

I find Eric a little faster than I expect to. He's sitting on a broken piece of concrete overlooking an old parking lot, skipping loose pieces of it across the asphalt.

“What is it, Stiff?” he asks without turning to look at me. His voice has all its edges but they don't sound quite as sharp somehow. I don't know what to say so I just stand there and eventually he looks back.

Normally, Eric could make me freeze up with just a look, but somehow I manage to force out the first question that comes to mind. “Why did he call you Alana?”

The second I ask it, I feel like it was a mistake. For a few seconds Eric looks like he wants to scream at me, but the sound gets caught in his throat. He snaps his teeth together and looks away. After a little while he sighs, forcing out a breath he’d held just a bit too long. “I had to explain this to Four, too,” he says, “because he wouldn't leave it alone.”

I think about offering to leave, but (unfortunately) I know Eric. He would have told me to get lost if he really wanted me gone.

“It's an old name,” he says, skipping another fragment of the city across the lot. “It's the one I was born with, and some people just won't let it fucking  _die_.”

He throws another chip of concrete for emphasis and I flinch back a bit. I've never actually heard Eric curse like that before. Abnegation doesn't permit language like that, but I guess it would be commonplace among the Dauntless. Just another change I'll have to adjust to.

“It's a nice name,” I say, and I'm sure he can hear how I don't really know what to say.

“Nothing wrong with it,” he says, “aside from the fact that it's a girl's name.”

I wait a minute to see if he'll continue. When he doesn't, I take a breath and try to think about how unlikely it would be for him to kill me over a simple question. “I guess I don't get why your parents chose it for you then,” I say and wait to see if he'll throw something at me for prying. I’m still not used to my curiosity not being punished.

He doesn't throw anything at me though. Instead he just takes a slow breath and shifts a little to look back at me, brushing his hair out of his eyes with one hand. He looks at me for a long minute, like he's weighing his options, and then, “Erudite is easily the best faction to be from if you're like me,” he says. “Then Dauntless, then Amity, then Abnegation, then Candor. Candor always believes you're lying, even if they don't say anything to you, and Abnegation will tell you you're focusing too much on yourself if you're uncomfortable.” A pause. A shrug. Another sigh. “When I was born, they thought I was a girl. And then I got old enough to talk and told them they were wrong. And because I was Erudite, they made sure it wasn't just a kid talking across gender lines and then gave me hormone blockers and a replacement that I still have to take. But it keeps me from wanting to jump in front of a train.”

I stand there for a moment, just trying to process that. I've never heard of anyone like that before, someone born as the opposite sex. Though I guess that makes sense since Abnegation tends to keep well away from anything that could be seen as self-serving, even learning about other people and the world around you, if it was done incorrectly. Or selfishly. To me, it sounds like it would be a terrible experience - having your mind and your body be so disconnected.

Eric goes back to skipping flecks of concrete across the asphalt. “So it's a dead name,” he says. “I am not Alana. I never  _was_  Alana. My name is Eric.”

His voice goes a little soft, a little tense at the end and I feel like he's saying it to himself, not to me. It changes again when he glances over his shoulder and tells me, “Needless to say, but you breathe a word of this and I will personally drop you off with the factionless.”

I think about saying something like 'No need to worry', but that sounds stupid in light of what he just told me and instead I settle on, “I don't doubt it,” because I don't, not at all. Besides, it's Eric's past, not mine. I didn't have any right to talk about it. He trusted me with it, and the least I can do is be worthy of that trust. Under normal circumstances, I might hate him. I might even be afraid of him, but along with bravery comes a respect for other's bravery... and for their secrets. A respect which Candor apparently lacks as a matter of principle.

“I wonder if the rest of the Dauntless have torn that kid apart yet for annoying you,” I say, looking back the way I'd come down. We aren't too far from the buildings down here, but I hadn't heard any yelling or gunfire.

“Doubt it,” Eric says, pushing himself to his feet. “Four's up there with them.”

There's something I don't recognize in his voice when he says that. It's not quite warmth, but it's close. It disappears soon enough, of course, and over the short walk back I become convinced that he'll casually throw me to the wolves as soon as any Dauntless ask where we'd been.

He doesn't.

The Candor kids are long gone by the time we get back. Neither Four nor the other Dauntless members say a word about us being gone and neither Eric or I bring it up. He steps back into place as the leader of our black-clad, gun-toting pack and for once I don't feel bad about falling into step behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, first fic for a new fandom...
> 
> I marathoned the Divergent trilogy recently and I have way too many headcanons (and potential headcanons) that still need exploring. I'm not sure how I feel about the way this turned out, but I think about these kind of things a lot whenever I read a series like this, so this is kinda just me working through my own thoughts about the world and how it might work with regards to characters like this.
> 
> It's headcanon city here, is what I'm saying.


End file.
